The Cheat Sheet Guide To Donald Glover’s Movies & TV Appearances

If there’s one star that shone the brightest in 2018, both in terms of visibility and sheer talent, it would be Donald Glover. The young performer is a writer, director, producer, rapper, actor, and DJ. He made headlines a number of times throughout the past year, earning rave reviews for everything from his hugely buzzworthy This Is America music video to his iconic performance as Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Here is our guide to the very best of Donald Glover, including television, film, and music!

Donald Glover’s television roles

Donald Glover on Community | NBC

Born in California in 1983, Glover developed an early interest in the dramatic arts, though it was writing that first jumpstarted his career. At the young age of only 23, Glover was hired by Tina Fey to be among the writing staff of her hit comedy 30 Rock. It was there that Glover first really started flexing his comedy chops, and in 2009, Glover scored a nomination for a Writer’s Guild of America Award.

Audiences first started getting familiar with Glover’s face when he left the staff of 30 Rock to join the cast of the popular TV show Community. His role as community college student Troy Barnes became a fan favorite, and the show ran for six successful seasons. Of course, when discussing Glover’s work in television, it is impossible to ignore his pioneering work on the FX show Atlanta, which debuted in 2016.Glover created the show and serves as producer, director, writer, and leading actor in the series, which is based on the concept of two cousins navigating the rap scene in Atlanta. He has scored several awards for his work on Atlanta, including the 2017 Golden Globe Award for Best Series. Atlanta is due to return to television sometime in 2019, with Glover again serving in a lead capacity.

Glover’s work in film

Donald Glover scored his first movie role in 2009, playing Jason Rogers in The Mystery Team. He also appeared in small roles in The Muppets, The To Do List, Clapping for the Wrong Reasons, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, Magic Mike XXL, The Martian, and The Lazarus Effect. In 2017, Glover had a small but memorable scene in Spider-Man: Homecoming, based on the film creator’s response to a viral web campaign that had Glover’s fans petitioning for him to play the web-slinging hero. While Glover didn’t score the coveted title role, his scene was hugely entertaining, and eventually led to Glover providing his voice talents in 2018’s animated feature Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

Also in 2018, Glover appeared as the legendary space pirate Lando Calrissian in Solo: A Star Wars Story. Playing the role that was originated by Billy Dee Williams, Glover completely stole the show, according to many critics. 2019 holds the promise of another big role for Glover – the multi-talented actor will be lending his voice to the role of Simba in the animated Disney feature The Lion King.

Donald Glover’s other name: Childish Gambino

Music is another one of Glover’s passions. He writes and raps under the stage name Childish Gambino, a name he pulled from an online name generator. While he had been working on his music for many years prior, he signed to his first record deal in 2011 and released his debut album Camp the same year. His following two albums, Because the Internet and “Awaken, My Love!” were both sensations, with the single Redbone going to chart on the Billboard Hot 100.

2018 saw the release of Glover’s This Is America music video, which he debuted while hosting Saturday Night Live. The video was full of blazing social commentary, clever in-jokes, and political references, and quickly became one of YouTube’s most viewed videos of the year. While Glover has not yet announced his musical plans for 2019, it is likely that the triple-threat has more than a few surprises up his sleeve.